As a spy, you're best off spending your time working to assassinate the opposing medic. Since the other team has only one medic, it is a huge advantage to your team if you can kill (or badly hurt) the other medic, even at the expense of your own life.
Since this is a competition-level play, you can expect full communication from the other team. You will very rarely fool them into thinking you're on their team. They all should know where everybody is. (Whether or not they really do is another matter). The simplest way for you to be effective is to find a nice sport to Cloak and Dagger, wait for the enemy medic to run by, and revolver or ambassador them from a distance.
Mix up your spots, be unpredictable, and stay hidden. You may also want to spend some time hounding the enemy sniper, depending on his skill level. I've seen highlander teams completely fall apart from a skilled enemy sniper. On the off chance he's razorbacking, the ambassador will be the weapon you want to go with. Mix your disguises, but definitely use the sniper disguise - that class matches closest with this play-style.
Comparison table
Base (Max) Disguise Backstab
Hitpoints Kit Icon On backstab
Knife 125 (185) Yes Yes Disguise drops
Enemy screams (crit-death)
Icicle 125 (185) Yes No Disguise drops
Leaves behind ice statue (crit-death)
YER 125 (185) No No Disguise as the enemy, silently
Corpse cloaks
Kunai 70 (180) Yes Yes Disguise drops
Enemy screams (crit-death)
Health is stolen from enemy
Earner 100 (150) Yes Yes Disguise drops
Enemy screams (crit-death)
Cloak is restored
Knife / Sharp Dresser
The normal knife and Sharp Dresser are the most balanced of the knives.
They are the easiest knives to use when you need to sap enemy sentry guns. Not only can you choose your disguise, but you can sometimes take up to 3 non-crit hits from an Engineer's wrench before dying... more if they're using the Jag.
Icicle
The icicle works mostly like the normal knife, except that it leaves behind ice statues instead of regular ragdolls, alerting enemies to the presence of a spy. If a spy holding the icicle is hit by a flame attack, or pulls out the icicle while on fire, they will not burn, extinguish any flames they have, and become immune to fire damage for 2 seconds. This disables the icicle for 5 seconds, but not the spy's other weapons, allowing them to escape or to pull out a revolver to take down the enemy who set them on fire. Usually it's best to use this item if you know there will be at least one pyro spychecking for the other team, so you can make a hasty retreat. Clever pryos, however, will equip a shotgun and kill you anyway, so best to keep running.
Your Eternal Reward / Wanga Prick
The Eternal Reward and Wanga Prick are very good for killing several enemies in succession, such as those pushing a cart that are not looking behind them.
It also makes a Stab and Sap on an Engineer and his sentry gun considerably easier, provided you already have a disguise.
Be aware that you cannot disguise as your own team with these knives!
Note: You disguise only if the enemy dies from the backstab. This means you will not disguise if they: turn when you kill them and die a normal death, are ubered, have a Razorback, or are using a Dead Ringer.
Conniver's Kunai
With 70 health, you are a one-hit kill to any non-Scout melee weapon. Most ranged weapons will also kill you in one hit.
Because the health you gain is capped at 180, you actually have less health than a fully overhealed Spy with the Knife or YER (they would have 185).
The Kunai may be good for escaping due to the extra health, but it requires that you get a backstab first.
Big Earner
With 100 health, your survivability is a bit higher than with the Kunai, but a single rocket, grenade, or scattergun/shotgun shot may kill you if their pellet spread is right.
The 30% cloak you gain from using this knife is not a lot in the grand scheme of things. For the Invisibility Watch, collecting a small ammo box restores 25% cloak, a medium ammo box restores 50%, and a large ammo box 100%. For the Dead Ringer, collecting a small ammo box restores 25% cloak, a medium ammo or large ammo box restores 45%.
The Cloak and Dagger would be the watch that gains the most from this, but it's also the watch that recharges if you stand still while cloaked...
What I use
I use the Knife or Your Eternal Reward as appropriate to the situation:
- CP push/PL defense (RED): Start with YER (Saharan Spy Set) and Cloak & Dagger. Switch to Knife and Dead Ringer as appropriate.
- CP push/PL offense (BLU): Start with Knife and Dead Ringer, disguised as BLU's Soldier or Heavy. This is to draw the enemy Sniper's fire, or set off the demoman's sticky trap. Switch to YER and C&D as appropriate.
- PLR: Varies. Usually YER and C&D.
- CP symmetric / koth: Varies. Usually Knife and DR.
- Arena: That's a trick question. I rarely play Spy in arena.
Best Answer
Lets weigh the different options:
These days, I tend to flip between using the Enforcer with the standard Knife/Dead Ringer and the L'Etranger with Your Eternal Reward with any cloaking device (and Saharan Spy set). Occasionally, I'll use the L'Etranger with the DR and standard Knife or the Saharan Spy set with the Dead Ringer.
In terms of pure damage, if you have time to aim, the Ambassador is your best bet. If you can't, the Enforcer is. If you tend to run out of cloak a lot, the L'Etranger can help, but remember that you break disguise when you shoot enemies with it.
In my personal experience, the L'Etranger seems to miss more than the other guns. All revolvers shoot straight down the reticule for the first shot, but somewhat randomly for successive shots until they cool down. This is much easier to tell on the Ambassador, as the cooldown is identical to the headshot cooldown.
Having said that, if you have auto-reload on, the reload animation takes slightly longer than cooldown, so letting it autoreload and complete the animation is another good way of telling if the cooldown is done.